


Of Lectures and Lesions

by CarnivalOfRust



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Crack, Friendship, Gen, Real Madrid CF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarnivalOfRust/pseuds/CarnivalOfRust
Summary: Sergio decides to educate his colleagues about football´s finer aspects.





	1. What does not kill you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyHighDisco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/gifts).



> I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had imagining the scenario. I think I´ll leave this story at two chapters, since this is not part of my current main project which will be longer and on which I´ll continue to work as soon as this one has run its short but insistent course.
> 
> This is not to be taken seriously. I took the liberty of grossly exaggerating the characters´ respective personalities for the sake of what I deem hilarity. There are "teachers" and "students" here; I trust you´ll figure out who belongs in which category.
> 
> I´d like to dedicate this story to the lovely SkyHighDisco who not only continues to amaze me with fantastic stories but also makes me more dedicated to my own writing. From the bottom of my heart, hvala for everything!

Nobody had thought much of it when Sergio had called them all together for a team gathering. Meetings between the players were regularly scheduled. Granted, it was usually their coach or one of his assistants who would take the lead. But when Sergio walked over to the door and shoved it shut, members of the managerial staff were conspicuously absent.

Marcelo glanced around. There were two rows of chairs placed opposite each other. One of them had already been occupied when he had sauntered into the room. He had spotted Sergio and Casemiro exchanging notes over some sheet of paper the Spaniard had been gripping tightly. Its crumpled state had obviously served as a source of discontent from Casemiro. Their squabbling had been carefully ignored by Rapha and Karim talking quietly to each other, their French litany being drowned out by Dani who had been noisily devouring an apple, crunching away next to the silent and unmoving figure of Keylor.

Mildly disturbed at the scene but not quite interested enough to raise any questions, Marcelo had plopped down on an empty chair next to Toni who had graced him with a shy smile before resuming his stare-off with the floor. The rest had trailed in after the Brazilian in short succession, with Lucas and Nacho following behind Isco and Marco. Gareth was the last to slip inside, shaking his head about something Luka had said before steering towards the remaining free seats. That was when Sergio looked up, taken a visible head count, frowned, and counted the free chairs. When that number had, after a while, amounted to exactly zero, he had sprung up and made off towards the door. And here they were, Marcelo thought dimly, tapping his wrist with an absent finger. He found himself wishing for a watch, because the way their captain puffed up suggested the start of a rather long and self-important announcement.

“People” Sergio began, clapping his hands together. “We´re here because-…”

“Hang on” Nacho interrupted him anxiously, “is this about that meeting the coach promised us last week? I don´t have a pen on me and I wanted to take notes-…”

“Oh yeah, me too. I still don´t get how that whole Nations League thing´s supposed to work anyway-…” Marco added, ducking when Sergio stared him down.

“This is not about the Nations League. Whatever that is. No, this is about a matter that I´ve been ignoring for far too long. I´ll be-… what?”

Lucas had raised a hesitant hand. “How long is this gonna take? Only I´ve got an appointment with my barber at four-…”

“You´re staying as long as it takes” bellowed his captain, huffing when Keylor took his shoulder in a stabilising grip. “I´ve-… we´ve prepared a couple of talking points. Don´t get your hopes up, though, talking is only the first step.”

“Dude.” Marcelo threw up his hands. “Could you be more specific? Right now would be a good time.”

“I will have silence, thank you very much.” Sergio glared at him in order to restore submission from his vice-captain, and Marcelo settled back down with a roll of his eyes that might as well have acquainted him with the back of his head.

“You-…” Sergio´s gaze swivelled over the row of his colleagues in front of him, accusation weighing heavy on his address, “… are a disgrace.”

“Uh, Sergio-…” Karim tried to butt in, but Sergio was undeterred.

“A bunch of spineless, snivelling _babies_ is what you are.”

“Are you, um, would you-…” The captain brushed him off, and Karim gave up, sinking sullenly into his seat.

“You´re the saddest excuse for a group of sickening cowards that´s ever dared to crawl into my sight. You wouldn´t steal candy from a toddler if it had hit you over the head with its saliva-coated lollipop. Twice!”

“Are you saying you would-…” Marcelo began, only to be cut off ruthlessly by his friend once more.

“It´s a fucking metaphor, man.”

“Sergio” Luka spoke up, “not that I don´t appreciate the vote of confidence, but what´s the idea here, exactly?”

“The idea”, Sergio spat, “is that you´re all too soft for your own good. Don´t think I didn´t hear you apologise to that Villareal player last week. For fuck´s sake, you _helped him up_ , too!” This was spoken with a particularly disgusted sort of reverence, like the kind you used to refer to an electrocuted handyman´s crispy back or an especially persistent stepmother.

“I _did_ knock him over, if you recall-…”

Sergio´s outraged finger sped towards Gareth who was owlishly blinking at its receiving end. “And you! Why, I distinctly remember you _getting up_ after that _very same player_ fouled you just outside the penalty box!”

“… So…”

“ _So_ ” the Spaniard imitated him condescendingly, “that could´ve been our road to even greater success! Heck, I could´ve scored from that position, let alone Toni! Didn´t you see him _aching_ for the opportunity?"

“Hang on” the German protested weakly, “I didn´t-…”

“That´s right. _You didn´t_.” Sergio had worked himself up to the point of spittle coating the floor between the row of chairs in a spray pattern of furious expulsion. “You didn´t even manage to stay down after that tackle from What´s-his-name. They were allowed to play on and we nearly conceded a goal.”

“Alright, I think we get it…”

“Do you? Do you get it? Because what _I_ don´t get is, Marco, why you went into that challenge with Who-the-fuck-cares and he got past you! No stepping on his shoe laces, no elbow in his guts, not even a good old hook behind the knee, you just _had_ to let him get the better of you!”

“Alright, Sese, very good. I´ll take over.” Casemiro wedged himself between the seething man and the wide-eyed recipients of his righteous rant. They slumped in relief when Sergio stepped down, only to jolt back upright when the Brazilian roared: “Right! You may be a pathetic bunch of losers, but we´ll get you in shape!”

“Is it too late to remember that I left my oven on?” Marcelo whispered towards Toni who coughed to mask his snort, gulping when Casemiro´s attention leapt at him.

“What? Anything you wanna say, _fraco_?”

Toni quickly shook his head, and Casemiro frowned in a decidedly disappointed way.

“You just failed the first test, man. Okay, that´s it, we´ll start you off with a short _Theory of Thrashings_ , followed by a discourse on _Ranting at the Referee_ , Dani´s gonna set you up with the basics of _Fouls ain´t Felonies_ , and if we don´t get results by then we´ll cover _Playing for Time_ afterwards.”

With a flourish, Casemiro gestured to the side where, hitherto unnoticed by his teammates, a blackboard proudly displayed the curriculum in huge chalky letters. Someone had, in scraggly handwriting that looked suspiciously like Sergio´s, added a cheery rhyme beneath.

 

_Yellow card – Smashing start!_

_Once you´re set: Don´t get red._

Marcelo closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh.

 

 

“Now! What do we do if the ref pats his pocket for a card? _Nacho_?” Sergio was aflame, gesticulating as he interrupted his lecture for an interrogatory round.

The young player twitched as he was dragged from his listless daze, twisting his hands in despair. “Could… could you repeat that?”

“… _Toni_?”

“What?”

“Same question.”

“Uh. Reach up for the skies in outrage.”

“That´s _right_. How´d you know?”

“You said it about a minute ago.”

“I did? I mean, I did. Yeah! That way, you-… yes, Toni?”

“That way, the referee will think twice before penalising us again because he can never be _completely_ sure of his decisions on the pitch. A very interesting explanation, I thought.”

“… Correct” the Spaniard admitted grudgingly. “You are a good listener, Kroos. You´re also a damned suck-up. We´ll work on that.” Toni, who had begun to preen, deflated again in a heap of gel-combed straw-scalped misery.

Isco´s frown did not go unnoticed. Sergio´s eyes swooped down on the unexpected participant, and Marcelo watched his digit stab the air repeatedly.

“Yes! You, stubbly!”

“Isn´t that a way to get punished even more?” The group held their collective breath as Isco formulated his criticism of Sergio´s instructions. “If there´s one thing refs hate it´s overt complaining. We really shouldn´t act angry if a card´s already on its way-…”

“Lemme tell you something, bendy legs.” Sergio stepped in front of him, looming over his Spanish compatriot. “I´ve been in this business for a long time, and I´ve had a lot of time to work this out. Besides, out of the two of us, who would you say is the resident expert on cards, huh? _Huh_? I thought so.”

Bulldozed by Sergio´s unwavering confidence and not quite able to work out the flaws in his argumentation, Isco snapped his mouth shut.

“Alright. Gareth!”

“Yes!”

“You´re running towards the goal, but the enemy tackles you. How do you react?”

“… I… I might… um-…”

“ _Louder_ , man! I can´t hear you over your stuttering!”

“I m-might, I mean, I _will_ stay down, holding my ankle and rolling around in agony!”

“Exactly! Not real agony, obviously, that would defeat the purpose of this exercise. The point is, if it doesn´t get you a free kick, you´re free to get a kick in yourself.”

Keylor cleared his throat, and Sergio amended, “as long as you don´t _seriously_ injure anybody. Don´t go overboard! Minor injuries are fine though-… okay, okay, _jeez_ , Keylor. No injuries. Speaking of which… who´s up for the practical part?”

 

 

The usual public grounds were out of the question. It was all too accessible for any unsuspecting media personnel stumbling upon what Marcelo had despondently begun to think of as their Cheat Charade, and even Sergio was unwilling to risk that kind of publicity leaking out. Bereft of other options, they retreated into the exercise department of their training facility.

Casemiro delegated the tasks of clearing the area and hauling forward some cushions of questionable provenance with relish. When he was finally satisfied with their set-up, he stepped up and gestured towards Rapha who joined him with his usual implacable expression.

“Alright, you lot better pay attention. Right temple! Left temple! Nasal bone, always a good spot. _Here´s_ the larynx, this is where the oesophagus is most vulnerable and _this_ -…” Casemiro droned on, indicating the mentioned physiognomic features on Raphaël whose face remained the epitome of serenity. Marcelo´s quick look around revealed that Nacho was dozing off again, Marco and Isco were engaged in a vicious thumb war behind their backs and Lucas was cheering them on silently. Gareth was actually paying attention, as was Luka, although he was watching the display with a displeased squint over folded arms. Only Toni managed to look mildly fascinated.

“-… aaand toes! Can´t forget about them, hurts like a bitch if even one of them gets squashed. Okay! Who´d like to volunteer?”

The group froze in unison, and silence swept through the great hall in a deafening roar.

Luka shifted next to Marcelo, and the Brazilian´s arm shot out to discourage his friend from what he already saw coming, but Luka swerved around the approaching hand.

“For what?” he asked, staring at Casemiro when the man brightened up.

“I´m glad you asked. Step forward, dude, we don´t have all day. Actually, we do, but let´s not be finicky.”

The Croatian took up the spot in front of Raphaël warily, eyeing Casemiro who was standing beside the tall Frenchman.

“Repeat to me what you remember.” Casemiro watched like a hawk as Luka haltingly pointed towards several target spots on Rapha´s immovable figure. “Alright, forget about the rest for now. What´s this one?”

“Solar plexus.”

“Yes. Now-… Rapha, do you mind-… right. Now, point to the same spot, but on me.”

Luka jabbed a finger into his chest, prompting Casemiro to huff in surprise. “There.”

“Great. Now hit me.”

“… What.”

Marcelo rubbed at his ears and then his eyes for good measure when his compatriot repeated the request.

“I´m not going to hit you” Luka insisted, stepping back when Casemiro scowled at him.

“Too bad, wimp. We´ll toughen you up whether you want it or not. Now, this? This is for getting you used to physical challenges.” When Luka shook his head, Casemiro snapped his fingers. “Come on. You don´t have to cripple me or anything. How about a good shove for starters, hm?”

“Actually, can I-…” Nacho began, but Isco shushed him, eyes fixated on the entertaining display of Casemiro trying to convince somebody to lay a hand on him.

“That´s not-…” Luka began, but Casemiro jerked forward, and Luka´s hands shot up reflexively to push the midfielder away. The instant his fingers came into contact with Casemiro´s chest the man crumpled up, grasping at his ribs with a pitiful groan. Luka stared at his writhing colleague, hands frozen in an awkward stretch in front of him, before realisation struck. His kick found its mark this time, and even Casemiro would have found his ensuing grunt hard to fake.

The Brazilian pushed himself off Luka´s angry foot, finishing a flawless three-part roll and springing up, miraculously intact.

“Everybody got that?” he asked, smugly passing Sergio who was nodding at him with approval on his way to the blackboard. While the others were distracted, Dani had pasted a poster over its smooth green surface. It was divided into two sections, one of which was crowned with a picture of a twinkly-toothed Sergio grinning into the camera with a raised thumb. The other half bore the likeness of – Marcelo felt a flash of indignation – his national teammate Neymar in mid-roll.

He turned to give Sergio a good earful, just about catching the man wiping a proud tear from his eye.

“Guys” Dani called out, “you better write this down-…”

“On what?” Nacho mumbled sulkily.

“…-because this is important. What Casemiro just demonstrated is alright in _some_ situations. It´ll get you a whistle in most cases. Current estimations range between seventy and eighty percent – shout-out to Sergio for his meticulous statistical compilations – but you cannot, I repeat, _cannot_ go down every time. For further demonstrations of why this is a bad idea, I will show you this video, starring this guy-…” He pointed towards the twisted man next to Sergio´s beaming face on the blackboard. “We´ll watch it together and compare notes afterwards, and _then_ comes the fun part.” His smile gained a diabolical edge.

“Implementation.”


	2. Makes you want to kill (or does it?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what can I say? Lovely bunch of people around here, seriously.
> 
> I´d like to express my deepest gratitude for your support over the Neymar issue. While I might have chosen a different approach, I found the complaint about using his tag valid, but as you can see, I decided to keep it and hope nobody else takes offence.
> 
> For now, this is all there´s going to be for this scenario. I have a feeling there´s still a lot of unexplored potential, but unless I find an unexpected chunk of free time in the near future, the story will be considered complete.

“Better” Dani said.

The practical session had left bruises on everyone, and their muscles were slowly beginning to realise it. Marcelo wondered how Marco would explain his black eye to the public. If they were lucky, it would have faded by the time the weekend came tumbling around.

“Moving on!”

His students collapsed in various stages of despair, to no avail.

“Subsection B, paragraph III-…”

How his mind knew to knit Dani´s lecture into something resembling sense, complete with its speckling of Roman lettering, escaped Marcelo´s grasp, but exhaustion made caring about it too much of an effort.

“…-how to rile them up. Two steps to this exercise! We´ll focus on the insults part first and work up to the concealment techniques. Go find a partner, everyone.”

Since Marco and Isco were already back to locking thumbs, belatedly looking up at Dani´s demanding tone, they were deemed the first duo and told to stand aside to await further instructions. Lucas instantly sidled up to the last remaining Spaniard, and Marcelo watched as Toni, who utterly failed to hide his growing enjoyment of their lectures, grabbed Gareth who stood closest to him, gingerly probing his jaw. This left the defender to throw a glance towards Luka who was talking at rather than to Karim, occasionally punctuating his tirade with furious finger jabs towards the three lecturers. The Frenchman kept shrugging helplessly, as if he did not quite dare to agree with his colleague.

Luka was still shaking his head when they were ushered to take up positions in front of each other.

“This is ridiculous” he hissed when Dani blew into the whistle he had produced from one of his pockets, signalling them to begin.

“No kidding” Marcelo agreed, glancing to the side where Marco and Isco were gleefully shouting at each other.

“Fart-brained piss guzzler!”

“Wart-faced sloth!”

“You shoot like a blind fish!”

“Well. Your headers are worse than Karim´s snail sandwiches!”

“You take that back right now, you slimy little twit!”

“Make me, you snot-nosed imbecile!”

And so forth. Dani was taking their effortless progress in with satisfaction, but when his ears failed to pick up similar results from Marcelo and Luka´s direction he ambled over impatiently.

“Come on, guys, step it up.”

“Dani” the Croatian implored his colleague, “you can´t expect us to actually take this – any of this – seriously. What could possibly be the point?”

“Sweet, naïve Luka” the Spaniard ploughed over the other´s indignation, “don´t you see? Why should we disregard one of our most effective means of influencing opponents in our favour?”

“How about giving basic decency a chance?” Luka mumbled bitterly, but Dani scoffed.

“Please. We are Real Madrid. We´ve got more gold stored in our trophy room than Fort Knox has ever seen, and we deserve every ounce of it because we are prepared to do _anything_ for victory. Don´t play the saint when you perfectly know that just about the only thing we _can´t_ afford is decency, at least not if we want to keep this up.”

While Luka grasped for a reply, the Spaniard turned his head and winked at Marcelo, a tiny twitch of his eyelid that made the Brazilian huff in surprise, especially because it was followed by a quick whisper behind a hastily raised hand.

“He just needs a little motivation.”

Before Marcelo could reply, Dani continued in a louder tone. “Anyway, it´s not like words actually cause injuries. And wouldn´t you say that anyone who lets himself get riled up over a bunch of insults deserves what´s coming to him?”

“No-… That´s not-…”

“Karim!”

The striker stood to attention while Dani´s thumb found Gareth who had hesitantly begun to return the plethora of insults Toni threw in his direction. His creativity had steadily begun to increase, and even though the Welshman failed to understand the bulk of German phrases thrown into the mix the general intent was impossible to miss. Sensing that he was about to be singled out, Gareth tried to turn his colleague´s attention towards the rest of the group.

“Um-…”

“ _Arroganter Affenarsch_ -…”

“Uh, Toni-…”

“You reek of your aunt´s whiskey aftershave-… what?”

Gareth pointed blankly at Dani who was grinning at the two and waving them towards him.

“Not bad, Toni. I see you aren´t the hopeless case I expected you to be, unlike _some_ of you-…” Cue his disgruntled glare towards Luka that was returned with equal fervour.

“Thanks” Toni said proudly. “I think.”

“But you still look like Mama´s half-baked choir boy. Man, you´ve got to really _commit_! And since we´ve got an expert with us, I thought he could demonstrate with Gareth. Gaz, you still need work. A lot of work, in fact, so pay attention.”

Karim stepped forward, revealing himself to be the ‘expert’, and while the Frenchman generally made the impression of an agreeable fellow, it turned out that when he put his mind to it, he exuded enough malice to make Gareth flinch on sight.

“I don´t-… understand” the Welshman garbled, frozen to the spot. “How-… You didn´t even move-…”

“What a gift, right?” Sergio, who had pondered their painstakingly crafted list for a while, had decided to get involved once more. He left the finishing touches to Keylor and Rapha who seemed to have developed method of communication beyond words. Marcelo tried to remember the sound of their voices, and failed. “Stand down, Karim.”

The man in question did not _visibly_ move, but suddenly, the air lost a good deal of weight.

“I doubt any of you sour-bellied sweetbread munchers could adopt this technique” Sergio told his disturbed audience, ignoring Lucas who was mouthing _sour-bellied sweetbread munchers_ with delight, “but that doesn´t mean you´re allowed to slack off. Gareth!”

“… Yes?”

“You managed to let yourself be frightened. You sicken me!”

“A-ah, but, umm…”

“You need to be ruthless! Deadly in front of the goal and everywhere else! By showing weakness, you allow the enemy to get the better of you, and that´s completely unacceptable! Are you a man or a whiny, indecisive, dumb, uh, clumsy _moron_ -…”

“For fuck´s sake, leave him alone.”

“Shame” Dani said, “and here I thought I´d be the one to crack this nut.”

Luka pushed him aside, stalking up to Sergio who inspected the fist that was raised to his nose with disdain. “I´ve had it with you. All of you!”

“Are you-…” Sergio began, but Luka spat a guttural string of words at him that made those in his vicinity cringe, despite the fact that none of them had the faintest clue what the Croatian had said.

“I´m leaving” Luka announced, “and I´m taking Gareth-…”

“Uh-…” Before Gareth could so much as react towards this new claim on his immediate fate, Luka grabbed his arm and started to drag him towards the door.

“And I advise anyone with a speck of common sense to do the same. This has been nothing but an _incredible_ waste of time, and now I´ll do us all a favour and remove myself and this man-…” he shook Gareth for good measure, “from your company before I do something I´ll regret later.”

The door slammed shut behind the two ex-Spurs players. Marcelo´s head started to shake on its own accord, as if it had trouble coming to terms with recent events. After a few seconds, Casemiro huffed.

“Idealists. They´re the _worst_.”

 

 

There was not much of a point to dragging out their lessons. Lucas had used Luka´s abrupt departure as an excuse to hurry out as well, presumably in order to keep the appointment with his barber, and Nacho had trailed after him like a lost puppy, bereft of an insult companion. Toni, who found himself similarly in need of a new training partner, threw a hopeful look towards Marcelo, but the Brazilian crossed his arms in a gesture that condemned the entirety of the day´s events graphically enough for the German to shrink back.

It was Sergio who took his teammates´ rejection of his imparted wisdom the hardest.

“I mean” he sniffled through the net of fingers in front of his face which was buried in his palms, elbows resting stiffly on his knees as he sat slumped over on a chair, “I was just trying to _help_.”

“There, there.” Each _there_ was accompanied by a stiff pat on his shoulder, courtesy of a glum-faced Karim. Dani, on the other hand, did not seem very upset that he had found an unexpected chunk of free time at the end of the day, rummaging in his bag in search of another apple.

Marco shuffled awkwardly towards Sergio, fidgeting in front of his captain´s defeated figure. “It was, uh, nice-…”

“Come on, dude” Isco hissed, tugging him towards the exit. “See you tomorrow!”

Marcelo crept towards the door as well until his captain´s muffled wailing melted into the walls. The last thought passing his brain before he stepped over the threshold into sweet freedom was of Toni who had not made a move to leave, staring into the distance with a special kind of focus that made the Brazilian shudder in hindsight.

 

 

Some things changed over the course of their next matches, although they were of little consequence to their overall gameplay.

Luka made a point of constantly apologising to every opponent he faced, leaving most of them less confused about the unexpected cordiality than about the vindicated glances he sent in Sergio´s direction afterwards. Gareth, despite having admitted to having been subjected to another lecture by Luka, an attempt to undo the damage done that day, took an extra second to get up from where he landed after a duel.

Marco and Isco did not see much of each other on the pitch, but when they happened to be within each other´s earshot, those standing closest were treated to a joyous exchange of bizarre insults, although they were never directed at anyone but each other.

The others seemed unaffected by the experience, though if Toni was given a rather wider berth than usual after final whistles, nobody could muster up the courage to call him out on it; all things considered, some of them were better left unsaid.


End file.
